The look  

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The look is the description of interpersonal discomfort by Jean-Paul Sartre in Being and Nothingness.

The mere appearance of another person causes one to look at him/herself as an object, and see his/her world as it appears to the other. This is not done from a specific location outside oneself, it is non-positional. This is a recognition of the subjectivity in others. Sartre describes being alone in a park, at this time, all relations in the park (e.g. the bench is between two trees) are available, accessible and occurring-for him. When another person arrives in the park, there is now a relation between that person and the bench, and this is not entirely available to him. The relation is presented as an object (e.g. man glances at watch), but is really not an object, it cannot be known. It flees from him. The other person is a "drainhole" in the world, they disintegrate the relations of which Sartre was earlier the absolute centre.

This transformation is most clear when one sees a mannequin that one confuses for a real person for a moment.

• While they are believing it is a person, their world is transformed, and everything exists as an object that partially escapes them. During this time the world comes on to you differently, and you can no longer have a total subjectivity. The world is now his world, a foreign world that no longer comes from you, but from him. The other person is a "threat to the order and arrangement of your whole world…Your world is suddenly haunted by the Other's values, over which you have no control."

• When they realise it is a mannequin, and is not subjective, the world seems to transfer back, and they are again in the center.

This is back to the pre-reflective mode of being, it is "the eye of the camera that is always present but is never seen". The person is occupied, and too busy for self-reflection.

This process is continual and unavoidable. Subjectivity is competitive. This explains why it can be difficult to look someone in the eye. Sartre does mention another man in the park who is reading a newspaper. This man is different because he is so engaged in a project, that he allows himself to be completely the object- "a man reading".